romance, mystery and everything in between

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Category Archives: Monthly Reads

Happy New Year, everyone! In 2016, I read a total of 65 books, which is about 59 less than I read in 2015. Out of those books, the majority of them were paranormal romance and about 34 were published in 2016 (that’s more than the 22 new releases I read in 2015).

Quick Review

This was our book club pick for July, which I was pretty excited about since Sanderson has been on my TBR pile for years. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really get into it. The world building was pretty awesome, but the main character, David, and his love interest/crush, Megan, drove me insane. Every time Megan opened her mouth was like nails on a chalkboard to me. While I won’t be continuing with the series, I’ll give some of Sanderson’s other stuff a shot.

Odds and Ends

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I don’t care who you are. This American Horror Story season 6 teaser trailer is terrifying as hell and I wish YouTube would stop subjecting me to it. All I want to do is watch Mystery Science Theater 3,000. Not have nightmares of this doll crawling toward me across the ceiling a la Trainspotting.

June certainly jumped straight into roasting summer. I didn’t get too much reading in this month, but I do have reviews written for everything I read. That’s the first time this has happened in a long time. I also made some good progress on a few challenges. I’m actually on time with a couple of them!

Reading Challenge Progress

I’m on schedule for the “New to You” and “New Release” challenges! A bit behind on the other two though. At this point I’m just aiming to get my TBR pile down to 150 by the end of the year, rather than down to 100. I’m putting myself on a book buying ban until the end of the year to help with that. The only exceptions to the rule are for titles I already had on pre-order. Continue reading →

May was a much better reading month for me than April. I still only read a handful of books, but a lot more of them fit within my challenges for the year. So, I felt more accomplished at the end of the month. Plus, I managed to read and review most of them.

Quick Reviews

The following two books are ones I read in May, but don’t have enough to say about them to justify a review post of their own.

This is one of Ashley’s novellas set in her Shifters Unbound series. It was a cute story that focused on wolf shifter Mason McNaughton going on a quest to find a healer for his people. I loved the parts that took place in New Orleans and wished we could’ve stayed there longer than we did. Things started to feel a little old hat when Ashley brought Mason and his psychic back to the shifter town. Still, this was a solid novella. Continue reading →

April went by so fast! This was probably my best reading month of the year, so far. In total, I got through 11 books. Most of those were either literary fiction or manga, which is a departure from my usual fantasy/paranormal romance reads.

Quick Reviews

I debated doing a full review for this one, but honestly I think most people have a pretty good idea of what “Catcher in the Rye” is about or have read it already. While I liked this one, I think I would’ve enjoyed it a lot more had I read it in my angsty teen years. The characterization of Hayden is done wonderfully, but he tended to annoy me. As a teenager, I’m sure I would have identified and sympathized with him a little more. Continue reading →

Quick Review

This one had a lot of potential, but Jameson resolved the tension between the two main characters too quickly. I think that’s my issue with this series lately. Jameson brings up a conflict, but resolves it a couple of pages later and seems to go the easy route doing so.

Reading Challenge Progress

Another slow reading month for me, but I did manage to get a couple of books in for the New Release challenge. I’m still going the wrong way with my TBR challenge though. I added almost 10 new titles to the pile… even with cleaning my bookshelves this month.

P. Jameson’s erotic paranormal romances are one of my guilty pleasures. Unfortunately, this one wasn’t that great. It felt more like a set-up for the next installment in the series. So, the main couple kind of bored me. Continue reading →